work

There are certain events in a person’s life that lead them to experience many changing emotions and I’m going through one of them at the moment. I’m about to leave my current place of work, after 9 years.

Mostly I’m feeling very excited about finding a new opportunity, I’ve got a lot of great skills that I can’t wait to use in a new role, but every now and then I get hit by a massive bout of sadness, for the people I will be leaving behind – you can’t work with people every day and not form deep and close friendships. There is of course a healthy dose of fear and nervousness, but that kind of goes without saying!

So you might see a bit more of me around here in the coming months, I’m going to have some time on my hands and I think some of it may well be spent blogging, as I said to an old friend this morning – just getting the stuff out can help can’t it, even if it isn’t read by many, or indeed any.

So, I wanted to tell you a little bit about a side project I’ve been working on…

You may or may not have gathered from some of my other posts that I’m a prolific reader and adore books. Well, when my friend J offered me the chance to help him out making books who was I to turn down the opportunity!

So ladies and gents, I give you Moofix! We are a local publisher, looking for books and authors. We all love reading and books and we’re really excited to launch our very first book very soon 🙂

I’m dealing with the marketing side, particularly social media (no really?!) so would love it if you could all come and say hello on our facebook page and get the discussions going.

Some of you may or may not know that I work “in social media”. My current job is working for a large company looking after their social media strategy and presence. I’ve had reason in the last few weeks to think about exactly what all this means and it has got me thinking about what it is that social media means to me, and why I love it.

There are posts and discussions all around the web talking about working in social media. Over on the Social Penguin blog, Mike has made it clear what he thinks about people who call themselves “experts” or “guru’s” *shudder*. And if I’m honest, I have to agree. I’ve been introduced by my colleagues as an expert before (though secretly I think I prefer the title “The Queen of Social”!) and it always makes me shrink. I mean, how do you live up to that?

We are working in an area of (in my case) marketing that is so new, even now, that I don’t think anyone can really be an expert. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m not good at my job, I am. What I’m saying is there is still so much to learn, and it’s not as if once you think you’ve learnt everything thats it, the world of social media is just growing and changing at a rapid rate.

For example, this week, facebook announced they have a billion active users every month! A billion! That just sounds like a made up number to me. But of course, the key here isn’t the number so much as the fact these people are actively going to facebook again and again, they don’t just have accounts and leave it at that (hello google plus). It is really hard to escape facebook in every day life now, connecting with friends, events, invites, this is all done through this one portal now, and a large number of people can access it from anywhere, smartphone usage is now huge. I can’t imagine being without mine.

But facebook doesn’t equal social media. Facebook is one tool, one site and yes it is the biggest in the western world, but working in social media doesn’t mean spending all day on facebook.

The reason I think I’m good at what I do, isn’t because I’m particularly technical, or advanced in my adoption of these tools, its because I’m really good at talking to people. I love striking up conversations with new people (I wouldn’t sit next to me on a long train joruney!), I’m pretty good at putting people at ease and I’m genuine. I don’t try and pretend to be someone else. And as well as being the reasons I think I’m good at my job, this is why I enjoy it.

Because I do, I love my job, I love interacting with a community, talking on behalf of my company, deciding how we should talk to our customers in this space and also yes, even dealing with crises.

I’m going to blog a bit more about this topic in the next few weeks, my life is changing and I’m exploring new ways of thinking about everything, let me know if you have specific social media questions, I’ll do my best to try and answer them.

Apparently I caused Dad a sleepless night after my last blogging session!! I guess he was just concerned I was ill! But, as I’m on a roll, Dad, I apologise in advance if this causes another sleepless one .

So, today (this was actually written on thursday!) is definately what you would class as a good day! In order of good things (I’ll detail them in a sec):

These are the specifics of my good day! The best one though was number 1. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been asked to give a presentation, to a whole bunch of social media people from various companies, talking about my job and the things I’ve achieved! I’m going to be presenting to around 60 people. The thing is, I know it’s not as crazy exciting as I’m making it out to be, but this is a massive achievement for me. It will be the biggest ever audience I’ve presented too and I’ve been asked because I’m bloody good at my job. I’ve been popping with excitement all day. I feel so damned proud of myself!

The others are less earth shattering for me. But all in all I think today’s been great. My boss is pleased with my work and I’m doing good things. I met with a supplier I’ve been talking with for months and I think we had a good meeting and then driving tonight I really feel like I’m making progress!

So anyway, enough gushing! I have shopping to order, tv to watch and chocolate to nibble.